Going back to the source | Forgetting the code | in your own cypher | Forever | picking up the pieces, never | putting them down, only | you find them fallen, fallen | Those evenings | music conjures a stillness inside you | When the thaw comes, it comes across the plain, spring | pitches its tents in globules of blue sky | reflected in | beads of meltwater | A small boat | pushed out from the bank | your daughter sleeps as you | drift past the miracles | And your thoughts | are always a kind of spring…

Going back to the source | to find | it was half way through | someone else’s story | Trying to keep all | the crumbs in one palm | In those years | you devised a | very beautiful secret | Now it is rust and cliché | fatigue and bombast | Waking, you | hope you pick up all the | pieces of your house: | this is where you live | this is the person you love | looking somehow | abandoned beside you | Sclerosis and phobia | eat into you | nerves brown off or catch fire, the scent | of their ashes is just | so easy to assume these days | This stillness must go on for a long time, only | you will never reach the end of it | Donkeys | in lines | laden with burdens | this is your morning | A song, a portable | church | with weight of | white marble and | ambient | brilliance of clear water | take it out when you want to || Against | every grain you | persevere | insisting on your grudge like a | rock or a | right | Yet, always | pavilions of blossom | are native to you and | even to think this has ended | is millions of blue globules of lit | blue sky | moving at once | setting into the plain | and rendering all | germinal

A map of spilled sugar | shows you the way to a broken sweetness | We put the break | into the grains | Throwing out | the shape of today | from the busy | hollow inside you | Dead mirror | entertains ghosts | the slow | desilvering | a drip | of time’s water | a mineral | secretion | Lovers | touch you in steam | pass a cake of soap | across 20 years | they have their swans and their cats | their boars and tigers | and they have | moments | they seem to rest | having shed all the words | naked and poised | as if they have just | been born and know | nothing | Breath | flushes memories | with entangled warmth | in a cat’s cradle of neurons | a new idea | occurs for an instant | as the fish | swell the nets, so | the nets take a form | Underground | the | train accelerates away | flashed with | magazines | you look for your stop | an unfamiliar line

One of those days | all the stations | are new | On the map | a bold fresh colour | Chūō or the A line | Growing old | looking at the spring blossoms | in a different way | subtly | putting into the mirror | a dish of ghosts | and in the cold | their breath | flares for a moment | an illegible map | (Argentina?) | in intricate | silver…

Edge of dusk | Filled with disturbed stillness, like a boat | not quite | unmoored | fingers | working at the knots | Journeys | sigh and creak | within the shells of | pistachios and behind the façades | of vacant houses | All needing | mariners | – the night, particularly | To come to the end is an easy thing, but | how do you know it | really is the end?

TO LET | An anticipation of rooms | Horses, harnessed to a carriage, but not yet | told to walk on | No longer | knowing what you know | unsure of the words | to use | to the strangers inside you | Unfathomable | instants of sleep | that shimmer of inconsequence | between light and light | Throwing the powder of your thoughts | into the raw-boned air | The February wind | seems to take no | tint of your | bemusement | Cancer, gravity, folly, rates of | exchange: counting the causes | But at the nap’s | edge | you wonder if you may | remember a different dream? || As the years pass, so the gaps | mount up | like stacks of new doors | awaiting houses

So we’re in the car | driving through the city | It’s a nice car | it’s a shitty neighbourhood | it’s a so-so city | and the car’s not | that nice | the neighbourhood’s | really shitty | we’re already | feeling old | and the day | feels old | as we drive along | already worn-out | ungratifying | we decide | we need more | gratification | or at least to get | over the bridge | where are we going? | does it matter? | just somewhere else | until our real lives | begin | this city | will do until April | then a better one | will come along | surely | We know some things | and we | talk about some of those things | some we | leave out | of our conversation | most, actually | So sad about rich people | in their rich lives | thinking | we want | to be them | well | too bad | It’s not about loving | and it’s not about taste | It’s not about nothing | when you feel that sub-bass | it’s not about nothing | when you feel that sub-bass | and we like the barbershop pole | could watch it go round all day | but we don’t | and the light is good | poised | like it’s not in time or something | like it is in San Diego | though we’re not in San Diego | and do we want to learn a language in 2018? | wow those Louboutins | spiked lurex pumps | shame he might | lose his sole | but then again | it’s competition | maybe someone might | design a cooler shoe | using Pantone 18 | 16 | 33 | TP | and anyway | can you trademark a colour? | yeah yeah but it’s not just | a colour | it’s a colour used in a specific | strategic | stylistic | signaturial way | authorising those shoes | as belonging to | a particular designer | and it’s not about loving | it’s not about taste | it’s not about nothing | when you feel that sub-bass | it’s not about nothing | when you feel that sub-bass | So we take a little pick-me-up | continue with our drive | and irony’s over-rated | and the language feels so dated | and I’d swear they are related | they look exactly the same | but later after dark | when we pulled up in waste ground | they were all dressed up in lights | and we don’t feel so old | they shine as they move | and they come down to us | they dance so fast | you can’t really see their limbs | so we don’t need the summer | we don’t need | the future at all | we don’t need the boutiques | or the craft wheat beer | and we are not | going to Uni | or to South East Asia | it’s not about the money | or the bitches or the dogs | it’s not about loving | it’s not about taste | it’s not about nothing | when you feel that sub-bass | it’s not about nothing | when you feel that sub-bass | Sub-bass

Hope the desperate land again | Gentle zombies nod and sway | no voices come for their one voice | My father’s mellow baritone, Run, Rabbit, run, Rabbit, run run run | The glittering sand that falls into my eyes | pours out of your eyes | falling and pouring through these empty shells | Morning, hopelessly new when the heart is over | The perfect song can have no song | Every sun is a plot against the sun

Thoughts of you | of how we touched but left no touch | decanting sand through dry vessels | summer being one | This was a real story | to pin a bliss on the cicadas’ score | wrap the girl in birch leaves, the boy | in his mother’s | funeral lace | Begetting nothing | and so moving on | Your sun, my sun, the sun, a sun | The mind is a fine and private place

Ether and lint | Spark v. gunpowder, pt 1 || Eke and stumble, so you may guess we are near | a limit || Ash trees, reflected | looking for a genus | waiting for a thought | Words, lining up for heaven, and the ones | who never get to | enter

Links and shivers | Connect the ram and the snake, zodiac | portents | Gunsmoke and a wide, wide sky | in your eyes || Collisions of | disparate cars | mercury and jaguar | Awake, again, for a while | Problems with | history and dopamine | Rattle and scatter of pigeons | broken | clouds | Most sense, you know, is never | made || Forests | catalogued and calm | all wrapped up | the trees apportioned || Signals | snapping in the brain | a map of stars and | hallways | War in the | leaves | Harm in the | miracles | Gum drops and the heart | has its gravities | Loft | space || Present and | correct | Hairbrush | gel | comb || Type | throwing debris of | lovely shadows | This is only the first volume, and already | you like it here and | stay and | call this wreckage home

Goldfinch battalions | Desperately | fine lines | Refined | almost to | nullity | Supplies of | velvet and crimson, junipers, materialism | growing thin | Booking right out | of epiphany | It all made sense, but | you couldn’t stay there | Hotels and moments | Stayed ‘Lost’ in the | Lost & Found | Shadows of text throw | trees of light | No | point | of | rest | Not here | Not there | When you’ve found what you’re looking for | what will you | find next?

Does that | make sense? || Over, on the other | side of the poem | in the corner with the | stem irises in an old | milk jug of | earthenware || Lips flit and | have their insect | life | the heart | clamours for fuel || Battle | insists on us | This war | requires our presence || For love, too, RSVP || What do you want next? | And what | did you find last? And | do you think it will | still be here | if you | come back for it?

At once, divides. As a sea, with wake. Dacha, from desire. In the forest, of your youth. In the glade, the horses | clouds of small flies | and the light like milk | pouring. In the clearing, of your memory. In your memory | of desire. At once, closes. And is seamless, after the episode. Like a sky, after our glance. Like a love, after our love.

Put your sex into it. Frizzled | withered | of the brown plain | the grey plain | in winter and sometimes | there is snow. Long, long way to walk. Clump, in your boots. Stubborn old child. Eyes like angels counting on their fingers | yet to learn | of evil. Hands | caged in unknown | tensions: hands, very soft, like angels dying in their sleep. Ignorant of the shapes | of all the caresses they may form | the gates | they have not but must | open. Perfect. Like a sky, during our love. And the light | just light | with a little wet | salt | pouring.

Put your back into it. Labour, to a stench of bitumen in April. Your thoughts | scrunch like shovels | scattering gravels: put your back into it. Hunch your shoulders | drift from | job to | job. Squat down in your own | heart | brooding and mute | observe | how the moments are polished and | cut | each to an acme | each | like a view | from a tall tower, looking down | over the brown plain | the cold plain | frozen | wishing to be | completed by snow. Perfect. Like a glance, as carbon goes by | hooded in a jewel | in a mask | of diamond. Hostage | to loss. Unable | to accept | defeat. Like a god, after neglect. Like a science, after a new science.

A new scene. Feet hung down like the heads of dead geese on | long white necks. It allows | you to travel. At once, with ships. As a sea, with wakes. Find a | private Russia. The ideas | fail here, you feel | the immunity of peasant boredom, how time | inoculates them | with the summers’ | towering volumes of | sky | a bastion | of empty blue | no thought will ever take, no | word could dint | the land beneath is | littered with “fucks” like | glistening needles | like stalks of straw | you | lie down at | nightfall | in the stables of your own heart | and feel how | all the horses of your youth | are beginning to | run.

A new sea. At once, divides. You’ve aged. Love has re-made you | taken a little | of the god out | put in | pinches of | children’s laughter. A land, clustered with the word “BUT”. The virus of roads | has not left you.

Put journeys into it. Teeming with junctures, it has become a semapolis. Showman, it performs | the old routine | miracle | of being one and at once | divides. In a sideshow booth | in a side-street afternoon | soda and no sex and flies, and the empty bottle | in your hand for no reason, and then | the evening | in a no-horse town. An imponderable melancholy, like joy | after true joy | like a good lie | after the best lie.

Foolish old child. Mouth | very quietly | humming with the | millions of words to come. Brow | troubled | scooping up the pearls of | teenage troubles | chucking them in a bucket, see | how they turn to | atoms | obedient | going off to school | to classes they can’t abide | like History or Latin.

At once, reforms. As a sea, with wake. Put your | mind to it. As it creates, so it | vanishes. Dacha, from desire. And the light like truth | sculpting the glade | the horses | in the heat | their heads | hung down.

A new scene. In the petrified forest | silent | imprints of birds | sing. It has become | a habit of ends.

This is a bad day. People will die in housefires, and you will never | write this poem. To have fought so long | for your place in injustice – is this all there is? The weather is no longer | the weather of desire | of sunflowers | of glorious | marks. Imagined | disaster. Already, heading out of here. At once, you can’t remember. At once, it closes. Like a sea, with wake. Like a book, with story.

Figure it out. It has no need for you, and yet | waits for you. Beautiful, and flawless. Like a sky, filling with dawn. Like a love | before our love.

What are we to do with | all these unnecessary words? | Do we really | make any more | sense with them? | Marked as junk | bounced | Theseus, the | Apollo programme || Long, brooding walks through | Romantic poetry | standing by the shore | looking out to sea | Hum and chatter of a metro train | lost in Gogol or Paul Auster | the strange | bat-winged project of Modernity | ladies and gentlemen in personal planes || Those carriages | in goods yards | that never seem to move | weeds | growing up around the bogies | daisies and fine-eared grasses | So many sounds | flesh | wilts under their light | weight || Shadows | of kisses | convulsive | nebulae of climax | the horsepower and the | mist | muscles shift into | when you | come || Oceans of | type and pixels | this | fragile spray | Nowhere to | park the oceans || Shelf life | Ovid and Naruto | the drifting galleons | of discarded | Victorian tomes | tons of | bizarre cargo || Space | inside a comma || Heaven | an erratum || The body | sends out its mules for | unspeakable supplies | and we | talk about pores or instinct || In Nevada | and here | a graveyard | of signs || Silence | comes for the voice and did you say | you loved the snow?